The Tropical Zodiac, the Vedic Journey & Misguided 'Vedic' Astrologers

'Gnosis, now enhanced by the descent of Supermind, is found only in the Vedic Journey as mapped out in the tropical zodiac. And, above all, it is only with the tropical zodiac of the ecliptic plane, balanced on the unchanging equinoxes and solstices that we can read the cosmic credentials of the Vishnu Avatar and his line in this 9th Manifestation.'

- Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet
'Those Unsettling New Paradigms'
Part 1 (July 2015) 

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'[The tropical zodiac] is what we find as the foundational language of the Puranas and its mythology and displayed in every temple across India. The sacred mountain is the most prominent and obvious connection. When the devotee passes through and beneath the main gopuram to enter the sacred precinct, it brings to his visit the lived experience of Mt Meru, the sacred Mountain of Capricorn. In the symbolism of sacred architecture the Gopurams are that Mountain.

The main Gopuram of the Srirangam temple

in Tamil Nadu, South India, where the purest tradition is found.

'Lamentably, during the Dark Ages a different formulation gradually gained ascendancy and ultimately did away with the former based on the tropical zodiac and its related mythology, as in the cosmology of the New Way. It introduced another ‘zodiac’ based on the imaginative animal figures made up of the fixed stars in the sidereal sphere, called Nakshatras. In the traditional astrology practised outside of India they are known as the Mansions of the Moon and were brought from India by Al Biruni, the Arab scholar-traveller who in the 12th century planted the damaging seeds that later flowered into the full-blown Nirayana system of astrological computations and ritual timings in use today. 

'I have stated many times and I must state again that these misguided reformists, whatever their motivation, are measuring in the wrong circle. At the end of this article I offer readers a graphic image of the problem and a brief explanation with the facts of the case. 

'Al Biruni’s Mansions of the Moon divides the zodiac circle into 27 parts based on the mean daily motion of the Moon which is 13.20 degrees. Moving through the circle cumulatively, from 0 degree through to the 360th, each point where this measure falls is called a ‘critical degree’. Any competent astrologer knows that when a planet is located on one of those degrees, whatever that planet represents will play a prominent role in the individual’s life. 

'Unfortunately Nirayanis, who call themselves by the misnomer Vedic Astrologers, carried the matter further – because there is a secret agenda behind this rise of thought in India. Muslim invaders, their own history records, destroyed thousands of temples across the land because of the role temples stepped in to play during the Puranic Age to preserve the Veda. But there was a far more insidious attack in the wings, with the potential of bringing the Sanatana Dharma to an end as it was known in the Vedic Age. The simple yet potent device was 1) to do away with the Veda’s foundational language of the zodiac itself, whether tropical or sidereal, and pari passu 2) to destroy the cosmic connection India had enjoyed from time immemorial (see the Capricorn symbol-map); indeed, to disengage the cosmic wheel from the true Zero Point (ayanamsha), the start of the ‘journey’, as it was called in the Rig Veda, on the Aries equinox of 21 March each year. This was cleverly done by insisting on measuring in the wrong circle, and claiming, as Al Biruni had advocated centuries earlier and the Nirayanis continue to proclaim: Aries has shifted, it has moved on; it is no longer there (at the March equinoctial point). ‘The solstice has kept its place but the constellations have migrated, just the very opposite of what Vahara has fancied,’ he wrote (India, II, p.7). With this Al Biruni plants the undermining seed of a shifting zodiac, erroneously equated with and measured in the sidereal sphere.

'There is what is called the Cardinal Cross in the tropical zodiac. it is composed of four signs, Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn. They are the equinoxes and solstices. Therefore an intrinsic part of the constitution of Aries is the thrust of energy as in the gunaic mode of Rajas, or Creation of the fundamental trinity Creation, Preservation, Dissolution. Actually Aries does not ‘exist’ disconnected from the March equinox; similarly with the others on the Rajas/Creation cross. So, to claim, as Al Biruni did, that while the solstice remained in place the constellations (zodiac) have moved away from the zodiacal connection with the Cardinal Cross, reveals a basic ignorance of the cosmic harmony. What is extraordinary is that no pundit, to my knowledge, rose up and refuted his claim. This is the crux of the Nirayana system Hindus follow, this claim that a ‘shift’ has taken place and therefore periodic ‘corrections’ must be made to accommodate it. 

'According to these Nirayanis, while measuring that purported 0 degree Aries in the wrong circle – the circle of fixed stars where no equinoxes and solstices exist – this 0 point has shifted, therefore a correction is needed to move the start of the circle back by 23 days. Consequently, based on their astronomical wisdom, disconnected from the alleged superstition of astrology which astronomers believe they have improved upon, we must agree to celebrate each new zodiacal year on April 14-15 and not 21 March; or, even worse, the Capricorn entry (Makar in Sanskrit, perhaps the most important festival for the Hindu collectivity) is also shifted by 23 days to 14-15 January, instead of the fourth Cardinal Cross solstice on 21 December each year when Capricorn actually begins for the whole world, not merely for Hindus, with no change – because these unchanging equinoxes and solstices are the temporal and spatial pillars of Hinduism. 

'In addition, the so-called shift that needs ‘correction’ varies from pundit to pundit because accuracy is impossible to achieve in the circle of fixed stars with relation to Earth, given that they are zillions of kilometres away from our solar system. The result is confusion and chaos; ultimately what should be the single most unifying factor for Hindus, a calendar that unequivocally secures the true cosmic connection, has become a most effective tool for dis-connection and endless dispute. 

'Today the supporting cosmic pillars of the Dharma have been wiped out of the cultural fabric where they can only be meaningful when the true link to the cosmic harmony exists. It no longer does for all practical purposes today in India, regardless of vociferous claims by the Nirayanis to the contrary. Practically, factually it exists only in the updated Indocentric cosmology of the New Way. 

'The tactic of undermining was superb indeed because Time itself, with each passing day, undoes the very Dharma it holds in the secret recesses of itself. Time, in the land where Mahakala is known to be above all the Gods, is made to work against itself: instead of a creative power it is one of undoing.' ...
 
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